Lesson video

Hi everyone.

My name is Miss Smith, and welcome to today's lesson.

In our lesson today, we will begin planning our final narrative scene of this unit.

So when you're ready, let's get started.

In our lesson today, we will begin with a sentence-level activity looking to fix mistakes in sentences, before we analyse our final scene, and that conversation about Dust, in more detail.

Finally, you will plan the final scene.

So you need something to write on and something to write with, and your brain switched on for today's lesson.

If you need to go and collect anything else, please pause the video now.

So let's start by fixing the mistakes in the paragraph.

And the Speech Sandwich is there as a reminder if you need it to refer to.

I'm going to read the paragraph now, and you should follow on screen, or read out loud with me.

"As the rest of the city returned peacefully to their homes, Lyra and her sinister guardian found themselves deep in conversation.

Although the discussion began in a friendly manner, the topic soon moved to particles, Dust.

Shielding her shoulder bag, Lyra confidently announced, 'Oh, I know about particles like Dust.

'" Can you pause the video now, and jot down as many mistakes as you can see from the paragraph below.

Okay.

Hopefully you've done that.

And we're going to have a look through this together, so you can mark your work as you go through.

In the first line, I missed a capital letter for that proper noun, Lyra.

Easy to do.

Make sure your proper nouns have capital letters.

In the second sentence that begins, "Although the discussion began in a friendly manner," you can see that I missed a comma after "manner," and that comma is important because it separates the two clauses in my sentence.

Then I used a dash and introduced Dust, and Dust is a magic, special particle in this narrative, and it needs a capital letter.

It's the name of something that's special.

So make sure Dust has a capital letter as a proper noun.

And now we're moving on to think about speech.

So you might have used your Speech Sandwich prompt to just check the punctuation in the speech.

You need to make sure there's a comma before the inverted commas.

In my sentence, speech comes second.

"Shielding her shoulder bag, Lyra confidently announced, 'Oh, I know about particles like Dust.

'" And because speech comes second, I need a comma before the inverted commas.

I also need to make sure I check that I've used inverted commas to end my direct speech.

Well done if you found all those mistakes, and just fix any, or make any edits you need to, to anything that you missed.

Today, we are planning the first part of this new scene.

So this scene is the conversation about Dust, and there are two images from this scene.

We've got Lyra and Mrs. Coulter, who engage in quite a fiery discussion in this scene.

So let's just think about what we have already planned, and what we've done already that's going to really, really help.

So we're familiar with some of the images from this scene.

And in a previous lesson we thought of nouns and adjectives for Mrs. Coulter.

Other ways of referring to Mrs. Coulter, and adjectives to describe her, so we can be really varied in our description in this scene.

We've also thought about speech, and particularly, how we can convey character and advance action when we use some speech in our writing.

Do you have any of these things? If you want to go and collect any previous notes, then you can press pause and go and do that now.

So we're going to plan the first part of the scene.

We're going to do it over two sections.

And this image trail shows us the very first bit of the scene, as Mrs. Coulter enters the room, and they begin their conversation, and all seems relatively smooth sailing in this initial part of the scene.

And our focus in planning today will be on character actions, and describing their facial expressions and actions to tell the reader what's happening and how they're feeling.

And we call that "Show not tell." So show them through our description, rather than just saying "Mrs. Coulter was angry." So first let's watch the first half of the clip before we plan.

Let's remind ourself with this.

And you could jot down any notes and ideas as you watch that you think will be helpful to your narrative writing for this scene.

Aren't allowed into- Perhaps we shouldn't have invited Professor Docker.

He's such a bore, isn't he? And he had sauce in his beard.

But he is one of the foremost experts on particle metaphysics.

Have I taught you what a particle is? Oh, I know about particles, like Dust.

That's a particle, isn't it? Dust.

I mean the Dust from space.

That Dust.

Like in the North.

Where did you hear about that? It must've been one of the scholars at Jordan.

Wise person knows, Lyra, that there are some things that we best ignore.

Subjects that you, well, you never speak about.

But, I didn't- Yes.

You didn't know.

So I forgive you.

Just don't mention it again.

So we're going to think together about the very entrance to the scene.

So as Mrs. Coulter comes in to scene, we've got two characters.

So we have the table to organise our planning ideas.

We're going to be thinking about show not tell, as we said previously.

So we've got Lyra and Mrs. Coulter, and a column for other ideas that we have.

So as you watched the scene and noted down your ideas, can you now pause and see if you can sort those ideas into the table, or add some other ideas for this very opening moment of the scene.

Okay.

Let's have a look together, shall we? These are my ideas.

And as always, you can steal them if you like them, and add them to your plan.

We know the best writers magpie ideas.

So as Mrs. Coulter enters, Lyra sits to attention.

So I put "sitting to attention," a nice non-finite opening.

Clutching her shoulder bag, or her bag.

Her eyes are wide, and they are fixed on the door.

Mrs. Coulter, then.

If we focus on Mrs. Coulter's body language and behaviours.

She is confident, striding in, her daemon at her feet.

She's glamorous.

She has a very glamorous dinner dress on, and she walks with authority, and that's a nice adverbial phrase, a twist to open the sentence, and to start it with authority.

And finally, other ideas I had for this scene.

Well, Pan certainly shows signs of panic and shock, as Mrs. Coulter enters, and Pan turns round.

There's a little bit of fear, so, "With fear." And both Pan and Lyra track her as she moves across the room.

She commands that authority.

Pause if you want to copy any ideas.

Okay, let's look at the next section.

This is the very start of the conversation.

And you can see from Mrs. Coulter's expression, that it begins in quite a lighthearted way.

And remember that we're trying our very hardest to describe behaviours to communicate the action in the scene.

So again, we're thinking about Lyra and Mrs. Coulter, and anything else that we have from our notes.

So, pause again, and add your ideas to the table before we have a look at this part.

This will be the last part that we look at together.

Okay.

hopefully you've added lots of ideas.

And remember, if you need to, you can go back and watch this part of the clip again.

So let's think.

What did I have for Lyra here? Well, in the conversation, she's joking a little bit, whilst being cautious at the same time, and remaining on guard.

And we know from her body language, what's she doing that tells us that? Well, she's nervously fiddling.

Mrs. Coulter, and she's doing this in this image, is laughing.

She's relaxing on the sofa with her daemon, she's stroking her companion.

All seems well at this point.

And then finally my other ideas, just a reminder that she's manipulative and overpowering.

And although she's laughing and relaxing, those things, there's that edge to her of that sinister tone throughout.

So your task today is to plan the remaining images of this narrative scene.

And you can use the remaining images to support your planning.

The two on screen are the two that we haven't looked at together.

Remembering that show not tell is your focus, and to zoom in on their actions, character action describing what they're doing, and what that tells us about the mood and atmosphere in the scene.

You might also add to the first part of your planning.

We've looked at those two sections together, but that's not yet the finite amount of content.

You can absolutely go back and rewatch the clip and add to those ideas again.

So, all images from the scene are on screen, and those with the pink box are the ones you should really focus on to complete your task when you plan the narrative scene.

So you should pause when you're ready.

Congratulations.

That is the end of today's lesson.

We completed a editing activity at the beginning, and fixed mistakes in the paragraph, before analysing in detail the first part of this final scene.

Well done for completing a detailed plan that will really support your other planning, and help writing the narrative scene later in this unit.

Well done for completing today's lesson.

Please keep your planning safe so that it's available to support your writing later in the unit, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.